Alan Bates

Alan Bates0:00

Hello, I'm Kirstie Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Disc's Archive. For rights' reasons we've had to shorten the music. The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen seventy six, and the presenter was Roy Plumley.

Presenter0:30

On our desert island this week is the actor Alan Bates. Alan does the idea of loneliness.

Presenter0:37

attract you as a challenge or repel you.

Presenter0:39

Oh, it attracts me. I'm not averse to my to my own company. I don't find it intolerable or um

Presenter0:47

I'm I can enjoy life quite a lot on my own. What would you be happiest to have got away from?

Presenter0:53

I think the pressures that evolve out of living in the society that we've all made, really, I mean, just the.

Presenter0:59

The rat race, I suppose, and people's intolerance of each other and things like that. Is music a major interest of yours? I can't call it an interest because I don't really have uh a tremendous knowledge of it. I think I was always too keen on being what I am, and too keen in the on the theatre. You heard a lot of music. I've heard a lot of music, and it's always been a part of my life, and a very important part. Yes, both your parents were musicians. Yes, they they were extremely good ones. My father was a professional musician for the first ten years of his professional life, and he gave it up for various reasons, including me and things like that.

Presenter1:35

Do you play an instrument yourself? I attempted the piano and the cello and the violin all when I was young, but I I had quite early formed this intention to to to act.

Presenter1:45

And I just sort of narrowed all my energies into that. Do you play records a lot?

Presenter1:50

Quite a lot, yes. What do you want your records to do for you on the desert island? What was your.

Alan Bates1:56

Well I

Presenter2:00

Thought about music that had been part of my life, in other words, I suppose nostalgia and uh evoking.

Presenter2:07

uh experiences and people. Where do we start? What's the first one? Well, the first one doesn't really relate to what we've just said. It relates to what I think would be my first

Presenter2:19

feeling about being there and it's a it's um

Presenter2:23

A number from Tommy, from the rock opera Tommy.

Presenter2:26

It has a certain ring and euphoria about it, which I think would describe how I would initially feel.

Speaker 42:37

I'm free.

Speaker 42:42

Freedom tastes of reality.

Speaker 42:48

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 42:51

I'm free.

Speaker 42:55

And I'm waiting for you to follow me.

Presenter3:01

Roger Daltrey singing I'm Free from Tommy. What's your second disc? My second disc is a piece of Chopin. My mother used to play this, amongst m many other things, a lot, and I remember her saying that Chopin was her favourite uh composer, and she played a lot of it.

Presenter3:17

And

Presenter3:18

It's just part of my childhood, really.

Presenter4:19

John Ogden playing the beginning of Chopin's Protésien impromptu.

Presenter4:24

Alan, you're from the Midlands, aren't you?

Presenter4:26

Yes, I am from Derbyshire. You said you decided to be an actor very early. You had already decided, had you, in your teens? Yes. No, I was about eleven, eleven or twelve. Was there any one occasion or any one performance that

Presenter4:38

prompted that decision.

Presenter4:41

Well, at school there was a lot of sort of dramatic activity at school, and verse speaking, and things of that nature, which I resisted wildly and

Presenter4:49

wouldn't have anything to do with. And then suddenly I

Presenter4:52

did want to. I found a sort of compulsion to do them. And I I just remembered that.

Presenter4:57

Uh

Presenter4:58

Feeling coming over me, and that really was the beginning of wanting to do it. Did your parents encourage you? A great deal.

Speaker 45:03

Hmm.

Alan Bates5:03

A great

Presenter5:04

They warned me a lot, and I think they had great trepidation about it in many ways, but they I think having been musicians and having had sort of um aspirations themselves, they they were very sympathetic. You started at Rada in some vintage years, I believe.

Presenter5:19

A lot of distinguished contemporary.

Speaker 35:21

Distinguished contemporary.

Presenter5:25

you'd know today who were there at the same time was pure.

Presenter5:29

Chance, I think. Peter O'Toole, John Stryad, Gary Raymond, Alvin Finney, Roy Kinnear, all sorts of people. You had some national service to get out of the way. Where did you go and what did you do? I went.

Presenter5:39

Er, rather ignominiously to Nottingham.

Presenter5:42

from Derby to spend an awful two years. I wouldn't uh try for a commission and I wanted to go abroad, but the two things I'm afraid went together and I would not try for a commission, something I I just didn't want to do that.

Presenter5:56

And so they stuck me in Nottingham and I just... Doing anything in particular? Doing nothing in particular except trying very hard to uh to keep up my sort of dramatic life. And when eventually you started your dramatic life, what was your very first professional engagement? I went to the Midland Theatre Company, which was based in Coventry and it was run by Frank Dungop. Yes, what was the first part you played?

Alan Bates6:12

Engagement

Presenter6:18

I can't remember his name, but it was The Juvenile in a new play by Dennis Cannot New Play at the time, You and Your Wife.

Presenter6:26

Quite an unmemorable beginning.

Presenter6:29

Well, nevertheless. Nevertheless, you've started, so let's break at this point for your third record.

Speaker 46:29

Mirror reflection

Presenter6:38

The third record is a piece that my mother and father used to play together in public quite a lot, and I used to go and hear them.

Presenter6:47

And it's a piece by Foray.

Presenter6:51

which is played by Casals.

Presenter6:54

Well appraisal.

Presenter7:52

Apres en Reve by Thore, played by Pablo Casals with Nikolai Mednikov at the piano. Now, Alan, you'd started your career. It wasn't long before you were in London, but not exactly in the West End.

Presenter8:06

No, at the Royal Court. Mhm. This was the beginning of the English Theatre Company. It was indeed, yes, it was its first season. How did that job crop up?

Presenter8:16

I heard about the Theatre and the Company forming from an actress who was in the Midland Theatre Company.

Presenter8:23

And

Presenter8:24

The auditions, I think, were just coming to an end for their first company, and I literally, I think, was one of the last people to audition.

Presenter8:32

And got in. Yes, there was a play by Angus Wilson, I remember, and and Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Then a play that was to change not only your life, but to some extent the life of the London Theatre. Yes, the their third play was, in fact, Look Back in Anger, and I was very fortunate to be in it. When you rehearsed Look Back in Anger, did you have any idea that anything special was happening, that this play was a breakthrough?

Presenter8:59

There was certainly a feeling that it that it w potentially was that, m yes, amongst the company and the theatre, of course, which is of course one of the reasons why they they were putting it on. But it opened without getting that kind of attention. Rather poor notices. Rather poor notices. And

Alan Bates9:12

It's a rather poor note.

Presenter9:15

We struggled on for the week and then Tynan and Hobson um

Presenter9:19

did what is now history for it. On the strength of your performance you were offered a very lucrative film contract, which for a young actor must have been rather tempting.

Presenter9:27

Well, it was, except that for some reason I had always thought of those seven-year contracts. I don't know whether they do them anymore. I'm sure they don't.

Presenter9:36

As a as a trap.

Presenter9:37

And

Presenter9:38

I think it it would have been for me.

Presenter9:41

You went with Look Back in Anger to New York? Yes. And also to Moscow. To Moscow for a week only in the Youth Festival. Mm.

Presenter9:50

We'll deal with film separately in a minute, Alan. Let's get on with with your stage career. What was your first job in the West Earn proper? West End proper was after Broadway, Look Back in Anger, and I came back and

Presenter10:02

Well, Jose Quintero, who is of course American, he asked me to do the London production of Long Day's Journey in Tonight. Eugene was about to do Eugene O'Neill, yes. Then there was quite soon there was another play that was to have a great impact.

Alan Bates10:08

Eugenie was about

Presenter10:14

The Caretaker. The Caretaker by Harold Pinter. When I read it I just knew I was reading something really quite extraordinary, although I hadn't really got can't claim that I really understood it. I di it was very sort of new form and language that it just hit me right between the eyes, and I knew I wanted to do it. Mm-hmm.

Presenter10:31

Right, looking down the the list.

Presenter10:34

A year or two later, you ha decided to have a shot at the big one. You played Hamlet.

Presenter10:39

Yes. Do you find it as much a challenge as

Alan Bates10:40

Did you find it?

Presenter10:44

It's an extraordinary

Presenter10:46

thing to do. It is it is about almost everything to do with one's experience. You know, it's just touches on

Presenter10:53

Absolutely everything. How much of a strain did you find it?

Presenter10:57

I wasn't aware of it so much as a st as a strain, as just never ending. There was no way that one could ever feel that one had done it. Nor, I think, would there ever be.

Presenter11:08

It's just a marvelous thing to to just get up and say and

Presenter11:12

An attempt. Do you want to do it again? Do you feel?

Alan Bates11:14

I'm the

Presenter11:16

Mm.

Presenter11:17

There are two playwrights, two modern playwrights, um on the list. We've done two plays of both of them, uh Simon Gray and David Story. Yes.

Presenter11:26

Yes, I did in celebration first, I think, of all those plays, which was David Story's not first but second play at the Royal Court.

Presenter11:34

which we later filmed.

Presenter11:36

It's an extraordinary statement on family.

Presenter11:40

Life and strife and tensions. It's probably, in my experience, I think perhaps the best.

Presenter11:46

Butley was a different thing altogether. It was it's perhaps the best modern part that I've ever

Presenter11:52

Played and one of the best, I think, that's ever been written. It was an absolute joy to do Simon Gray's Butlery, which we also filmed.

Speaker 411:55

You'll play the

Speaker 411:57

Yes.

Presenter11:59

And you played it in London and New York? London and New York, yes. And in New York you got a a top drummer award for it. Oh yes, yes.

Speaker 312:04

Oh yes.

Presenter12:06

Now you haven't done a great many plays, Alan, but you've certainly covered a lot of ground.

Presenter12:12

Yes, I have in a way. Um

Presenter12:15

I've done

Presenter12:17

modern work and classical work and regional theatre.

Presenter12:20

and West End commercial work.

Presenter12:24

Before we talk about films, let's have another record. Let's go for.

Presenter12:29

The Pergolesi, which is a flute concerto played by Jean-Pierre Rompault. And I'm I've chosen it because I once.

Presenter12:36

had to learn or attempt to learn the flute for a film far from the meddling crowd and I found I had a certain facility for it and I have not really followed it through.

Presenter12:44

And I think the island would be a great place to do that, and I want a little inspiration.

Presenter13:48

Part of the first movement of Pergolese's first flute concerto with Jean-Pierre Rompal as soloist.

Presenter13:56

Now you turned down that seven year film contract early in your career. You wanted to be able to pick and choose what in fact was the first film that turned up. The first film that turned up was The Entertainer, and it was through my association to the Royal Court with Tony Richardson's, I think, second

Presenter14:12

Film, I think it must have been.

Presenter14:15

And I played the younger son, Laurence Olivia's younger son.

Presenter14:19

Now, you and your fellow actors made the film of The Caretaker as a cooperative venture. You you worked for nothing, you you gambled your services. Yes. Did that pay off?

Speaker 414:27

Yeah.

Presenter14:29

Well, yes, it did. I mean, it didn't pay off for some time financially, although it now has turned the corner. Uh, we paid everyone back. It paid off in the sense that it was able to be done, that it's uh

Presenter14:41

a marvellous a account, I think, of

Presenter14:45

arguably his best bit of writing.

Presenter14:48

You made a French film which impressed me very much. It was released here as The King of Hearts. Yes, it's it's a fantasy. Absolute fantasy, extraordinary film, which has become a cult film in America. When it opened,

Presenter14:59

In France, it got terrible reviews. It opened here but it took quite good reviews, and in New York to quite good reviews, and then it just sort of went to sleep. And it emerged.

Presenter15:08

In the colleges, I think, in America, at the time of the Vietnam War, and it sort of just caught the imagination. It's a sort of

Presenter15:16

Anti-war fantasy, really. The setting of the the the town setting was most impressive. Where where did you make it? We made it in a town called Saint-Lys, which is north of Paris. It's a it's a beautiful old town. They make lots of films there, I think. I didn't know at the time. I thought we were just the first people there. And then I kept cropping, I saw films and it kept cropping up. But it is a fantastic background. It's a great location.

Alan Bates15:30

Yeah. Yeah.

Alan Bates15:33

Different

Presenter15:37

Then the D H Lawrence film, Women in Love, that was a big one for you.

Presenter15:41

Yes, I had always wanted to be associated with something by Lawrence. I've loved Lawrence all my life, and uh it was terrific to do it. Obviously for a long time you've been in a position to pick your own scripts, and you've been a very good picker, wi with the exception of one play by Arnold Wesker. It's been success all the way, hasn't it?

Presenter15:59

Well, I don't know. I think a lot of things have been very fortunate and well done and worth doing. Um success yes, I'm not quite sure how you count it. I mean quite a few things have not worked commercially, for instance, and have had a a certain prestige success, if you like. Having so successfully directed your own career, are you tempted to do this on a larger scale and direct other people to to direct plays, produce films?

Presenter16:29

Yes, I am. I did produce a small film of my own, which was shown on Aquarius a couple of years back, and

Presenter16:37

I would like to direct a play very much in the theatre. I've said it rather a lot. Perhaps it's one of those occasions where one says it and never does it. I let's hope it isn't. Anyway, I've said it again. Yes, I'd like to. Good. Record number five. Record number five is uh a marvellous singer, Nina Simone.

Presenter16:54

Someone I've always loved.

Presenter16:56

And she's singing a song from Hair.

Presenter16:59

called I Got Life.

Presenter17:01

Which I think is

Presenter17:04

as appropriate as it's marvellously done.

Speaker 317:06

I got my hair, got my head, got my brains, got my ears, got my eyes, got my nose, got my mouth, I got my smile.

Speaker 317:19

I got my thumb, got my chin, got my neck, got my boobies, got my heart, got my soul, got my back, I got my sand, I got my arms, got my hands, got my fingers, got my legs, got my feet

Presenter17:38

Nina Simone singing I Got Life From Hair

Presenter17:42

What's your next record? Let's go straight into it. It's the third Brandenburg Concerto. Why do you choose it?

Presenter17:48

I choose it because we used it, we played it at the beginning and at the end of Life Class, which was David Stories, and it was absolutely right in in its complement to the play.

Presenter18:00

And it just is for me an association of of music with work that I've done myself.

Presenter18:08

And I think I'd like something that did that.

Presenter19:10

The opening of the third Brandenburg Concerto, Yehudi Manuin with the Bath Festival Chamber Orchestra.

Presenter19:16

Now, you're playing Robinson Crusoe for us, Alan. Are you anything of a handyman? Could you look after yourself on this island? I think so. I haven't done that much of it to to justify the statement, but I would actually love to uh to have a go. I would be uh, I think, excited by having to do all that. Would you try to escape?

Presenter19:35

Most likely in the end. But there'd be no rush to.

Presenter19:41

Let's get on to record number seven.

Presenter19:43

Right.

Presenter19:44

Now this is uh from Westside's Story, which when I first saw it, I saw it ten times. I thought it was the most incredible thing I'd ever seen. But this song is one of the first songs in it, Something's Coming, sung by Larry Kurt, and uh the message would be appropriate after a certain length of time on this island.

Speaker 420:03

With a click, with a shock, phone'll jingle, door'll knock, open the latch, something's coming, don't know when, but it's soon, catch the moon, one-handed catch, alright!

Alan Bates20:09

Hey uh

Speaker 420:20

Fucker

Speaker 420:24

Our Westland down the river Come on deliver.

Presenter20:34

It's Larry Kurt singing Something's Coming from West Side Story. And now we come to your last disc. This is a concerto by Boccerini.

Presenter20:43

And

Presenter20:44

My father played this a great deal, and he recorded it

Presenter20:48

himself

Presenter20:50

once with the Derby String Orchestra.

Presenter20:52

For the BBC.

Presenter20:53

conducted by John Pritchard when John Pritchard was at the beginning of his career.

Presenter20:58

And it it

Presenter21:00

Calls up.

Presenter21:01

Very much my.

Presenter21:03

beginnings, as it were. Hm. Unfortunately we can't lay our hands on that particular. No, I wish we could. I it was probably live and maybe even not recorded, I don't know. But you found um Chaitline Dupre.

Alan Bates21:08

Uh

Speaker 421:16

Yeah.

Speaker 421:17

Uh

Presenter22:12

The end of the first movement of the Boccharini cello concerto, Jacqueline Dupre with the English Chamber Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barrenboy.

Presenter22:21

If you could take only one of your eight disks, Alan, which would it be?

Presenter22:26

That's a really hard question, almost impossible to answer. But I think that as I'm hoping

Presenter22:33

to uh end my stay on this island with

Presenter22:36

Being a master of the flute. I'd better take the Pergolese, hadn't I? Right. And one luxury to take with you. One luxury. Well, it's better be the flute, I think. Oh, I thought you were going to make one out of Bergen. Well, uh one could, and I w I might, but I don't think I'd ever make as good one as I could take. Right.

Presenter22:52

And one book apart from that little list of the Bible, Shakespeare, and big encyclopedias.

Alan Bates22:57

Mm.

Presenter22:58

Yes, I think it would I've thought quite a bit about I think it would have to be as

Presenter23:02

as comprehensive an anthology of

Presenter23:06

poetry as I could find, really from early English right up to to now. A specified one or one you're going to compile yourself?

Alan Bates23:11

Submit

Alan Bates23:13

Uh

Speaker 423:13

I

Alan Bates23:13

I think

Presenter23:16

And thank you, Alan Bates, for letting us hear your desert island discs. Okay, thank you very much. Goodbye, everyone. Goodbye.

Alan Bates23:30

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.